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News About Tech, Money and InnovationTue, 31 Mar 2015 22:23:16 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Copyright 2015, VentureBeatUber woos European drivers with the launch of ‘Momentum’ rewards program, kicking off in the U.K.http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/07/uber-woos-european-drivers-with-the-launch-of-momentum-rewards-program-kicking-off-in-the-u-k/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/07/uber-woos-european-drivers-with-the-launch-of-momentum-rewards-program-kicking-off-in-the-u-k/#commentsWed, 07 Jan 2015 11:50:16 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1637065Uber is launching its new 'Momentum' rewards program for U.K. drivers, two months after the U.S. launch.
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Back in November, Uber introduced a new rewards program for its U.S.-based drivers, offering perks such as vehicle maintenance discounts, personalized healthcare recommendations, and discounts on wireless services. And today, Uber has revealed it’s looking to woo drivers internationally, starting with the U.K.

With Momentum’s U.K. launch, Uber is tweaking the available perks for the local market, as there’s no real need for healthcare recommendations in a country that already offers free healthcare.

Elsewhere, Uber is offering what it calls “lifestyle” perks, such as online accountancy discounts, which serve as a gentle nudge for drivers to be wary of their annual tax obligations.

While the perks available at launch aren’t particularly extensive, Uber says more will be added over time, with the potential for more than £900 ($1,300) worth of benefits each year.

250 trips

To qualify for Momentum, Uber drivers must have completed 250 trips or more, though Uber doesn’t specify how many hours a week they must work thereafter. However, it does say that it “reserves the right to recall any Momentum Card from any Uber Partner” if they “don’t maintain an active status on the Uber platform.”

Although Uber divides the perks into “Business” and “Lifestyle,” the rewards are largely related to drivers’ work with Uber, so it will be interesting to see whether it introduces significant perks to the mix not related to work, such as gym discounts. As things stand, there isn’t a great deal in there to lure more drivers on board, though for those already plying their trade with Uber, the benefits are certainly better than nothing.

Prior to the launch of Momentum, Uber has offered other “perks” such as car-financing plans, as it looks to encourage more drivers to sign up, though these have drawn criticism in recent times for facilitating subprime lending.

Though it’s only available to U.K. drivers for now, Momentum will be rolling out to other European countries moving forward, Uber says.

]]>0Uber woos European drivers with the launch of ‘Momentum’ rewards program, kicking off in the U.K.Momentum debuts ‘first ever’ equity-free mobile accelerator program (exclusive)http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/14/momentum-debuts-first-ever-equity-free-mobile-accelerator-program-exclusive/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/14/momentum-debuts-first-ever-equity-free-mobile-accelerator-program-exclusive/#commentsTue, 14 May 2013 17:18:24 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=737349Mobile Monday, an international organization that supports the mobile community, Momentum debuted its program today that offers a free twelve week program to support promising mobile startups.
]]>An equity-free accelerator program sounds almost too good to be true, but Momentum announced its program today that offers a free twelve week program to support promising mobile startups.

Momentum is an initiative out of Mobile Monday, an international community of people in the mobile industry who come together at events for networking and discussion. The founders of Mobile Monday were interested in opportunities to support mobile startups in more tangible way and founded Momentum to “give back” to the mobile community.

“Mobile is clearly top of mind for most companies, investors, shareholders, and executives as they develop strategies to innovate, increase revenue, and sustain their competitive advantage in the future,” said founder Arte Merritt in an email. “We want to contribute to moving mobile technology forward. Mobile is a huge opportunity and we are looking for innovative startups to participate in what is coming next.”

Participants in the program will work out of coworking space RocketSpace, and have access to mentors, workshops, and a dedicated team member for support. They will attend one-on-one meetings with corporate sponsors, VC pitch sessions, industry dinners, and present at a demo day. Merritt said Momentum is unique because it is vertically-focused on mobile and targets companions that are already shipping a product and have raised some funding. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Momentum is a non-profit and takes no equity.

“Our goal is to help the startups get commercial deals and develop deeper relationships within the mobile community, to truly accelerate their businesses, as opposed to teaching startup basics,” Merritt said.

Momentum operates with sponsorship from Intuit Samsung, PayPal, Rocketspace, and law firm WSGR. The plan is to offer multiple classes each year around the world. The first class has five startups:

Fiverun brings the “Apple Store” shopping experience to any brick and mortar retailer, enabling retail associates to sell more, faster, directly from a tablet, which unifies online and offline products into a single shopping cart.

]]>0Momentum debuts ‘first ever’ equity-free mobile accelerator program (exclusive)Box reveals plans for 2013: Global expansion and a partner networkhttp://venturebeat.com/2013/02/05/box-reveals-plans-for-2013-global-expansion-and-a-partner-network/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/05/box-reveals-plans-for-2013-global-expansion-and-a-partner-network/#commentsTue, 05 Feb 2013 18:38:23 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=617185Cloud storage startup Box has announced its plans for the coming year as it readies for a 2014 IPO.
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Cloud storage startup Box has announced its plans for the coming year as it readies for a 2014 IPO — and these call for international expansion.

The company intends to open new offices in Europe, Asia, and Brazil and is planning to fortify its enterprise sales team in those regions. This follows on the heels of healthy growth in 2012: Box experienced a near 150 percent jump in sales from the previous year.

The cloud storage market is flooded with competition: Google Drive, Dropbox, Egnyte, and SugarSync rank among the companies jostling for dominance in the sector. But Box has emerged as an investors’ darling (it raised $150 million in a recent over-subscribed funding round) for its knack of winning over enterprise customers.

Box has announced a new program called the “Box Partner Network,” which formalizes its relationship with channel and platform partners. New partners include Autodesk, Marketo, and Tidemark, which are using Box Emded (the HTML5 embeddable framework) in their applications.

“What we’ve done is taken existing partnerships and brought them under a program,” said Whitney Tidmarsh Bouck by phone. The former chief marketing officer at EMC was brought on to carve out an enterprise sales strategy and land big-name customers like The Gap and Volkswagen.

She said the company will refer to itself as an “enterprise content collaboration platform” to emphasize that the technology is used by businesses as well as consumers. In addition, Box wants to promote its open API to third party developers. About 17,000 developers use the platform to build custom applications, approximately a 300 percent increase from 2011.

In recent interviews with VentureBeat, Aaron Levie said that the role of the chief information officer is changing, and startups have an opportunity to compete with legacy vendors like Microsoft and Oracle. “In 2007 when we looked more into the enterprise, even Silicon Valley didn’t think we could win,” he said.

In the coming year, Box will continue to grow its 700-strong team in the U.S. and in international markets. In Europe, Box will hire 100 employees by the end of the year, primarily in sales, support and marketing roles.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Did you know that walking on your office floor is actually creating energy that could be captured and put to work? Gravitational Systems does, and it’s harvesting this energy for you to use.

“First of all, when we think in terms of human kind today, the one trend that seems to be unstoppable is that everybody wants to live around everybody else,” said Gravitational Systems founder Gare Henderson at the DEMO Conference.

Gravitational System’s technology collects the “waste energy” created from momentum and heat. This includes footsteps on highly trafficked store floors, and wheels on highways and parking lots all release this energy. You can see an example of how Gravitational Systems collects this energy in the photo to the right.

Henderson pointed out that energy cannot be destroyed. Because so many people live near each other, you’ll find much higher concentrations of energy that cannot be destroyed in cities.

“To nature, a city is like one of those abandoned coal mines that catches on fire,” said Henderson. “[That energy is] being converted into heat, vibration, noise, pollution … we need to find methods of emulating my favorite energy systems and that is a self winding watch. It doesn’t run when you take it off, but that’s the point.”

Henderson went on to talk about how much energy we’re wasting through actions like cooling office buildings at night, but we’re losing a lot more energy than we realize.

“You have two choices at DEMO, you get up and you show product, or you get up and you [talk about] a big vision for the world,” said Adeo Ressi of Founders Den at the DEMO Conference. “I felt like I was at Ted for a minute there.”

The company is based in Clifton, Va., and has thus far raised between over $500,000 from unnamed investors. Gravitational Systems is looking for a new $5 million seed round and hopes to one day $20 million first round of funding.

Gravitational Systems is one of more than 75 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Fall 2012 event taking place this week in Silicon Valley. After we make our selections, the chosen companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.